I always thought that Airlines care more about safety than about anything else and that their equipment has to be 150% perfect.
On 6/12 I learned that some companies like America West don't start to get worried as long as their planes don't fall out of the sky. About 3 minutes after take-off from LAX the right engine of their Airbus A 319 started to vibrate and make a noise as if it would fall apart in the next moment. First some passengers started to laugh and to make jokes about it like "Now we have lost the muffler..." but then everybody turned very quiet on that flight. The flight attendant went to the cockpit and when she came back (obviously after having talked to the pilots) she peeked through different windows, stating that she was trying to "localize the problem". There was no comment from the pilots what was wrong with the plane - probably because cargo or cattle does not need explanations.instead they moved the throttle back and forth to find a power setting which reduced the noise and the vibrations. The safest maneuver would have been to return to LAX but that costs the company thousands of Dollars and a lot of paperwork, so the best is to act like everything is normal and to let concerned passengers know that they are ignorant: After I wrote a letter to the company they only wanted to admit that "the A-319 is a little bit noisy". The same day an A-319 from America West lost an engine cowling on a flight from Reno to PHX, the pilots were not aware of it until some passengers talked to the flight attendant.in my life I have spent more than 1000 hours in the air and I know what a well maintained A-319 sounds like. If my car starts to make a strange sound and to vibrate I pull over if I don't know what it is. America West waits until something happens.
Stefan
Phoenix, Arizona
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